--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "gsp.schoo@..." <gsp.schoo@...> wrote:
>
> Because if you had you would find that they consume a great deal of energy and no small amount of skill to put a book on your shelf. Not to mention what goes on in the forest. They consume more energy than used for the publication of your thoughts on the internet.
>
Yes, but I was referring to thinking that the Internet will exist forever. The energy it consumes is one important factor. There is no reason to assume that people in the future will have computers at home. Why would one think that? Amazon forever? I doubt it. There is also the question of preservation of digital material, which is not trivial. Digital material from as recently as the seventies and eighties has already been lost and/or is unreadable. This is not a minor concern.
I don't feel any need to have a "position" -- history requires no such positions, since things just happen. But even if one were to have one, just for the hell of it, the position that today represents a paradigm that will only be amplified and improved in the future strikes me as a dubious one. Why would one think that?
Best,
mrt
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 11 Aug 2010 EDT